“The survey,” says Kornelia Kotseva, chair of the EUROASPIRE Steering Committee and a professor at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, “shows that large proportions of individuals at high risk of cardiovascular disease have unhealthy lifestyle habits and uncontrolled blood pressure, lipids, and diabetes.”

Individuals with high heart risk

The recent study focuses on “apparently healthy individuals in primary care at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease, including those with diabetes.”

Altogether, 78 primary care practices from 16, mainly European, countries took part in the research, which took place during 2017–2018.

‘GPs need to be more proactive’

They need to probe beyond the risk factors that they are already aware of and “always investigate smoking, obesity, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes,” she argues.

Individuals often don’t realize that they should be receiving treatment. They may visit their doctor for diabetes care and not know that they also have high blood pressure.

“In our study, many participants with high blood pressure and cholesterol were not being treated,” notes Prof. Kotseva.

She suggests that the findings highlight a need for more investment and policy that focuses on prevention.

The recent news follows that of earlier research that featured at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in April 2018 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

In that study, researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN concluded that excess belly fat is “bad for the heart,” even in individuals whose BMI is in the normal range.

They advised doctors not to assume that having normal BMI means that there is no heart-related issue in an otherwise healthy individual.

A BMI in the normal range does not necessarily indicate normal fat distribution. It is important to measure central obesity as well, to get a better picture of heart risk.

“These data make it clear that more efforts must be made to improve cardiovascular prevention in people at high risk of cardiovascular disease.”